At the Heart of a Tiger: Clemenceau and His World, 1841-1929

Stubborn, contrary French premier Georges Clemenceau (1841-1929), who helped unify the Allied war effort and who rallied his country to victory in WW I, was a model of resistance to Churchill and de Gaulle, yet his heroism is not well known to English-speaking readers. This sprawling, exceptionally vivid biography gives us Clemenceau's many facets--country doctor, foreign correspondent in the New York of corrupt Democratic boss William Tweed, embattled mayor of Montmartre during the bloody Paris Commune, eloquent defender of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, literary friend of Zola and Mallarme, enraged cuckolded husband, war hero. An intensely private man, Clemenceau destroyed much of his personal papers. Dallas ( The Imperfect Peasant Economy ), who lives in France, rounds out this portrait with graphic accounts of internecine French politics, German imperialism, Parisian working-class conditions, the carnage of WW I and Clemenceau's friendship with Claude Monet. Photos. (Oct.)